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Saturday Night Live: The British Are Coming, and They Aren’t Very Funny

Russell Brand is one of those things that is best used sparingly, like wasabi or puns. It’s not that he doesn’t have the potential to be funny — he was entertaining enough in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I am always tickled when he makes an appearance on The View and makes the ladies visibly uncomfortable. But that’s all I require of Russell Brand, a bi-yearly appearance on a morning talk show, or perhaps a total of fifteen minutes hosting some outdated and meaningless awards show. What I do not need is an hour and a half of Russell Brand yelling at me about how famous and British he is, or how tight his pants are. This is more Russell Brand than I or anyone aside from Katy Perry really ever needs, ever.

That little rant over, there were a couple bright spots in last night’s Saturday Night Live, notably in bits that were (comparatively) Russell Brandless:

Sure, the Spiderman musical is low-hanging fruit. That doesn’t make this Spiderman lawsuit commercial any less funny:

The other funny skit of the night was clearly inspired by the presence of the guest host but fortunately did not allow him to overshadow it with his yelling and tight-pantedness:

As for the rest of it … just, no. The “Royal Taster” sketch with all the yelling left me head-achey, the “Living Single” sketch with all the tight-pantedness left me needing a Silkwood shower with an antibiotics and hand sanitizer chaser, and the “A Spot of Tea” sketch with all the Britishness left me befuddled. It was supposed to be funny because they were drinking tea? During a series of earthquakes? Is that the entire joke, or did I miss something? Is this one of those British things that we Americans don’t understand like rhyming slang or irony?

Fortunately, there was Stefon. I don’t usually mention Stefon, because he’s a recurring character, and I have a long-standing policy to not talk about recurring characters as I think that even when they are funny, they tend to be easy and lazy, BUT WHATEVER. WE’LL TAKE WHAT WE CAN GET THIS WEEK, BECAUSE JEEZ.

What did you think of last night’s Saturday Night Live? Am I being too harsh, or was it as painful for you as it was for me?

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..